Boxer Claressa Shields, age 17, clawed her way out of hardscrabble Flint Michigan to win the first ever Olympic gold medal for women’s middleweight boxing. She has won 31 fights -- and lost only one. “That fight made me work so much harder when I got back to the gym, even though I cried and I was sad. It made me hungrier.”

This week our annual showcase of world-changing people, projects and ideas commences in Camden, Maine. Whether you're joining us in Camden or watching the livestream at home, here are a handful of ways to maximize your PopTech 2012 experience.

We've compiled a cohesive PopTech 2012 Twitter list that includes PopTech staff, speakers, performers, Fellows and participants. If you're attending PopTech 2012, have a Twitter account, and you'd like to be added, let us know!

If you are a Foursquare user, subscribe to our Camden Tips list for the inside scoop on where to find Wifi, a great cup of coffee or good eats.

Pilobolus outdoor Umbrella Project is coming to town. On Friday night, Oct. 19, from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m., Pilobolus will enlist several hundred volunteers to participate in a large-scale, live performance using umbrellas fabricated with multi-colored LED lights created by the MIT Distributed Robotics Laboratory. The performance will be simultaneously projected onto a large screen. Volunteers are welcome on the spot!

Yossi Sheffi explores the various flavors of redundancy, simplicity, flexibility and communications strategies businesses employ to make themselves resilient. “These are the most dangerous things; the things that have severe consequence and low probability…These are the events one worries about when one has to run a large organization.”

The PopTech Science Fellows program is a unique leadership development opportunity designed to help high potential working scientists become more effective communicators, collaborators and leaders both within and beyond the traditional bounds of academia. We recently announced our Class of 2012 Science Fellows and we're excited to share their world-changing work with the PopTech community.

The PopTech Science Fellows program is a unique leadership development opportunity designed to help high potential working scientists become more effective communicators, collaborators and leaders both within and beyond the traditional bounds of academia. We recently announced our Class of 2012 Science Fellows and we're excited to share their world-changing work with the PopTech community.

Kelly Benoit-Bird, an oceanographer at Oregon State University, applies acoustics to the study of ecosystems in the open ocean.

To learn more about Kelly, we asked: In one sentence, what impact do you hope to have through your work?

My goal is to perceive the sea the way its inhabitants do, for it is only when we understand how things work that we can do anything to solve the problems of planet Ocean.

Climate change is exacerbating flooding in waterlogged Bangladesh. Already, hundreds of schools get wiped out during the monsoon season. Mohammed Rezwan builds floating schools, healthcare facilities and libraries. “If 20 percent of the land goes under water, which may happen in the next 10 to 20 years, where will these people go? We don’t have enough space, enough land. People have to live on the water in some way.”

The PopTech Science Fellows program is a unique leadership development opportunity designed to help high potential working scientists become more effective communicators, collaborators and leaders both within and beyond the traditional bounds of academia. We recently announced our Class of 2012 Science Fellows and we're excited to share their world-changing work with the PopTech community.

Flaminia Catteruccia is a molecular entomologist at the Harvard School of Public Health, specializing in the reproductive biology of Anopheles mosquitoes, the only mosquitoes capable of transmitting human malaria.

To learn more about Flaminia, we asked: In one sentence, what impact do you hope to have through your work?

I seek to find innovative ways to eliminate disease-transmitting mosquitoes and help reducing the global burden of malaria.